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Go to city hall. It's there for all to see, one side or the other side, the endgame months away.

You can feel the political humidity sucking up the air.

Yessir, if Owen Tobert, the city manager, thought his smackdown report last week, dissing city auditor Tracy McTaggart's finding of a sadly lacking paper trial as city contracts ballooned by more than $700 million, would make the nastiness go away ... well, it didn't.

Tracy is fighting back.

The only thing everyone now agrees with is, at this moment, there are no cases of actual fraud. Tracy says when she was talking about the almost certainty of fraud at the city she was talking about it as being statistically almost certain.

She says she never claimed any living, breathing instances of fraud. She is now investigating 10 complaints around city contracting practices.

But the city is trying to give off a sense of vindication because no one has had the cuffs slapped on them for taking a kickback.

Meanwhile, Tracy appears Thursday to a group of aldermen overseeing her audits and says she was disappointed she couldn't defend herself against Tobert until now.

She grabs the chance.

Tracy says her bean counters looked at all files they were provided, electronic and paper.

The electronic ones were seen on a drive where the city stores information, but information was not stored on a consistent basis. Info regarding 2006 was not found. Auditor access was limited to this shared drive. Any documents stored elsewhere, including e-mails, were only given the once-over with the say-so of the city.

Auditors discussed incomplete information with the city to try and find out where it was,

They talked "on several occasions" with the city about missing documents, including April 8 with chief financial officer Eric Sawyer.

In some cases, access could be given but the folder was empty.

"It's possible things were moved into the folder. I can't explain it," says Tracy.

There were orders to add money to contracts with no evidence of who authorized it.

The city auditor also says while some bigwigs are willing to give access to electronic files, others prefer to print them off and e-mail them to Tracy, a practice she doesn't like quite so much.

Tracy says when it comes to $747 million of hikes in city contract payouts, some of the increases were legit and others were "not consistent with best practices and processes."

She adds such large jumps in dollar amounts should be reviewed more strictly and city rules really need to be improved.

Tracy issued an audit last fall stating there was "no real assurance" the city's contracting was always conducted fairly or that taxpayers were getting the best bang for the buck. She found "an increased risk of error and malfeasance" because of the city's absence of rules.

Then there's the order hiking a contract by $73.5 million instead of $73,500 because it was typed wrong.

The error remained undetected for six months although it was readily apparent in financial reports. It was never questioned or acted on by the city. The error was found by the auditors and fixed.

The city auditor says her people discussed any concerns and even made changes to the final report. The city brass knew what was in the final report and didn't squawk until after there was a meeting about the audit and Tracy uttered the F-word -- fraud.

"At no point was I made aware of any of Mr. Tobert's concerns," says Tracy of the time leading up to release of her investigation.

"I stand by the contents of the report as written."

The auditor says she's willing to sit down with Tobert but she may as well ask to attend hell freezing over. She is willing to drill deeper in a further audit but we know the Last Judgment will happen first.

Eric Sawyer, the city's main money man, says the city accepts all Tracy's recommendations on how the city can clean up its act but there are "some basis disagreements."

Eric says the auditor had full access to the files and tells us the city and Tracy's crew were looking at the same stuff. He says that's where the city "found appropriate documentation."

So it's the old He Said, She Said and $1 million-plus later, after the October election, an outside audit will say God knows what.

It will be finished about when Tracy's contact is up for renewal.

Tracy vows from now the city will have to sign off on audits, saying all disagreements have been discussed and all documentation has been given the eyeball.

As the auditor speaks, a young guy in dark shortsleeves, looking more like a kiddie club bartender than a bureaucrat, shoots video from a little camera.

When Tracy's done he quickly heads out, up the stairs, straight to the city manager's office.